“Hiroshima,
Mon Amour” (1959), “Last
Year at Marienbad” (1961) and “Muriel” (1963). These are
the first three feature films directed by Alain Resnais, and I cannot
think of another director whose first three features rival them in
quality. Granted, Resnais had already put in more than a decade as a
short film maker (mostly documentaries) so he was hardly a novice when
“Hiroshima, Mon Amour” took the film world by storm, but his
accomplishment is still stunning.

While “Muriel” is hardly an obscure film, it is easily the least
well-known of the three, but it’s hard to imagine why aside from the
most obvious explanation: it hasn’t been as widely distributed either on
film or, until now, on DVD. “Muriel” actually has two titles, the other
being “The Time of Return” – multiple “returns” comprise the narrative’s
main body. Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thiérée), now in his mid-twenties, has
just returned from a two year tour of duty in Algeria. Alphonse
(Jean-Pierre Kérien), a dignified silver-haired gentleman, has also
returned both from a lengthy stay in Algeria (or so he claims) and also
into the life of his former love Hélène (Delphine Seyrig, who also
starred for Resnais in “Marienbad”), who is also Bernard’s
step-mother. Hélène, for her part, returns incessantly to her imagined
idyllic past, an obsession signified in part by her vocation as an
antique furniture dealer.

Guy Maddin is today’s king of cinematic meditations on memory, but
Resnais was the memory-master of the 60’s. Hélène has a bad memory
(which probably explains why she views the past so romantically) and
envies those with good memories. Little does she know that her step-son
is cursed by his eidetic recall of the most traumatic event of his life.
While serving in Algeria, Bernard witnessed the interrogation, torture
and murder of Muriel whose precise identity we are never told; in fact,
we never even see her. Muriel is never far from Bernard’s mind; he even
tells Hélène he is engaged to a woman named Muriel. Some of Bernard’s
Algerian comrades, especially the vaguely menacing Robert (Philippe
Laudenbach), want Bernard to drop the Muriel matter completely but he is
both unable and unwilling to comply. Her memory, or at least his memory
of her, must be preserved, and Bernard engages in just every form of
recording you can think of: journal entries, a tape recorder and even a
small portable film camera. The implication is that physical recording
devices function as the best antidote to the unreliability of human
memory.

Unlike in his previous two films, Resnais does not jump around in time,
though he certainly skips a few beats. Each sequence is situated in a
short period of time (a single day, for example) but the narrative
dances back and forth among multiple story-lines involving each of the
protagonists. Each character has his or her own life both in relation to
and apart from the other characters: Bernard has his tortured memories;
Alphonse has his own past to escape; Hélène has not only her aloof
step-son and fickle lover to deal with but also the mounting gambling
debts that threaten her struggling business.

Environment receives as much attention as character, a quality
attributable both to Resnais and screenwriter Jean Cayrol who also wrote
the catalogue-style narration for Resnais’ “Night
and Fog” (1955). The film opens with a rapid-fire montage of
Hélène’s household belongings; similar montages focus on building
exteriors, street signs, and consumer goods in storefronts.

“Muriel” is a portrait of trauma as moving as any since, well, “Hiroshima,
Mon Amour.” Lonelyache exudes from every frame of the film, in
each precise gesture, each exacting detail. The film is so densely
packed with that even after four viewings I feel like I have barely
scratched its surface. In fact, I find it more difficult to write about
than even “Marienbad.”

As Jonathan Rosenbaum points out, Jean-Luc Godard is more properly
considered a Swiss filmmaker which leaves the titles of “Greatest Living
French filmmaker” up for grabs, and no more obvious candidate to fill
the post than Alain Resnais. “Muriel” is one of his greatest
achievements. Personally, I think it's an even better film than "Hiroshima,
Mon Amour" but that's splitting hairs.

I’m so excited to see “Muriel” made available on a Region 1 DVD
that I hate to point out the flaws in the transfer.
Unfortunately, the image is very soft in places as should be
evident in some of the screen captures below. The color palette
also seems a bit washed out, especially the reds. I don’t if
this is attributable to the source material or the transfer.
It’s not a bad transfer mind you, it’s just that it’s only
average and a film like “Muriel” deserves so much more.

The only extra included is a short interview (13 min.) with
Francois Thomas, author of “L’atelier d’Alain Resnais.” His
lucid, if all too brief, analysis of the film is very
enlightening, particularly his contention that “high brow”
Resnais drew heavily on comic books as an inspiration for the
film’s design, especially with its overlapping audio edits
(think of the “POW” “ZAP”s that extend into the next frame or
two in a particularly lurid comic book.)

Resnais is just as important a French New Wave director as
either Godard or Truffaut but for some reason only a few of his
films have received even a modest Region 1 DVD release. Even the
widely-acclaimed “Last Year at Marienbad” is available only on a
mediocre (and I am being generous) transfer (in Region 1) from Fox Lorber way
back from another century. Resnais deserves a lot better, though
he’s hardly alone in that category.